


2/3

by WolfAndHound_Archivist



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, First War with Voldemort, Friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-06
Updated: 2016-02-06
Packaged: 2018-05-18 15:11:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5932840
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WolfAndHound_Archivist/pseuds/WolfAndHound_Archivist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which our heroes decide they are, in fact, lonely.</p>
            </blockquote>





	2/3

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Lassenia, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Wolf and Hound](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Wolf_and_Hound), which was created to make stories posted to the Sirius_Black_and_Remus_Lupin Yahoo! mailing list easier to find. However, even though I still love the fandom, I am no longer active in it and do not have the time to maintain it. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in December 2015. I posted an announcement with Open Doors, but we may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on the [Wolf and Hound collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/wolfandhound/profile).

He liked to crook himself in the rare winter sunlight, listening to music. Endless streams of music, until the sentiment of each song was thin and used up. Sirius had spent the better part of November fiddling with his newly acquired turntable, attempting to create a power source that didn't rely on electricity. Sometimes it was easier to do things the Muggle way. There was comfort in the very - tangibility- of the Muggle world; a quality never found in his own sphere, where science was routinely cheated by a thought. He was almost ashamed to admit he loved it, to wash a dish or sweep floors, labors that let the days run by quickly, like water off his fingers. He'd bought the turntable because it talked to you, sang to you; an undemanding companion.

He only left his flat to shop, drink with James or visit the market around the corner owned by Mrs. Prakash's brother. They had the most wonderful spices there, tiny bottles of saffron and cardamom and turmeric, all standing in rows topped with white caps. They sold tea there also, and glutinous amber bottles of oil and liquor. Packages of dusty sweets whose flavor he couldn't define. Shades were kept drawn, and in the darkened aisles he thought he could see the varying scents coloring the air: layers of incense and soap, chicken and rot.

Mrs. Prakash's niece worked the counter and always had a smile for him, the handsome Black boy who lived in her aunt's building. The girl would watch him, eager for his conversation, wistful expression fleeting across her gazelle eyes. She had once offered to read his tealeaves, leaning close and touching a coy, brown finger to his hand. It had taken all of his composure not to laugh and inform her he'd forgotten more of that art than she'd ever know. Sirius thought about kissing her, asking her home with him at night to remove the skin of loneliness. He imagined how beautiful her pink sash would be draped upon the floor of his flat, sheer in the light of the following morning. But when he pulled away from this phantom intimate in his dreams, hers was never the long, firm form Sirius saw beneath him.

Mrs. Prakash was concerned. Her new tenant received no letters or magazines nor any post for that matter. He did not even own a telephone and would often come knocking and shamelessly ask if he could borrow hers. Lacking electricity, she worried that he must be using candles to light his flat and could possibly bring the whole building down. He slunk around her brother's shop like a hoodlum, prying her niece smudged, sexual glances, while only buying the occasional pack of biscuits. Mrs. Prakash had also taken to spying out her peephole to observe his late night guests. They were funny- looking people, men and women both, coming at all hours, though she never saw them enter or exit through the front door. She and her sister-in-law gossiped over this excitedly, and wondered if perhaps the lad was a gigolo.

Upon leaving Hogwarts, Sirius had burned the last bits of homework parchments with James and Peter; a spectacular bonfire that sent crackling blue sparks up into the atmosphere. They stayed that July night in the backyard of the Potter home, smoking Peter's mum's cigarettes and talking as boys do at that age, tough and disinterested as though nothing could wound them. It was a pale claim, to be such good friends and no longer know one another.

"Danny Kirk says Remus is a poof." This was Peter, fumbling with the contraband pack of smokes.

Sirius snatched the unlit cigarette from Peter's mouth. After lighting it, he muttered, "Danny Kirk -is- a poof.`Sides," he added after taking a pull off the fag. "That's none of your business anyway." They had seen Remus off in June, collecting from him a reluctant promise to reunite come Christmas. He had hugged Sirius first when Sirius had wanted to be embraced last.

"Yeah, I guess. Still," James answered. "Be kind of odd, what with sharing a room together all these years. Him seeing us starkers and such. Don't you think?"

Sirius took great care with his growing record collection. Often he would spend half the day organizing them by artist or title or by the color of the cover. After James left a large, greasy thumbprint on one album Sirius proclaimed him banned from the turntable, and jinxed it so only he could change records. Lily had laughed. Lily understood. Lily was raised by Muggles and had always owned a record player. She admitted to him that she didn't let James near her albums either.

Music was one of the few things common between Sirius and Lily, beside their love for James. She rebuked Sirius for his smoking, his drinking, and the lazy luxury in which he spent his money. After carousing with James into the early hours one morning, she'd come rushing into his flat, emptying every liquor bottle he had down the drain. His sink hadn't stopped hiccupping for weeks afterwards. He could appreciate what James saw in her, though he would rather be at the blasting end of a curse than deal with such a temper. With precise, earnest features and a clipped way of speaking, Lily had known exactly the way in which to woo James, fashioning from Sirius's boyhood chum an upstanding, responsible, boring wizard.

Sirius feared that Lily read him plainer than parchment. That she thought him weak; a collection of nerves and energy and potential that was never to find structure, and cling uselessly to the lives around him. He had seen those men before, skulking around public toilets, worn and unloved.

Sometimes Lily would call on Sirius's flat, bringing him scratched albums rescued from charity shop bins. He'd ask her stay and take a listen, both of them hoping that some forgotten treasure had been unearthed. It was her concession to him, and he to her. She had visited him yesterday, coming to his door with a crisp stack to share.

"You seem to have a touch of a cold and I thought I'd come by and make sure you're well. James can't do with a sick Sirius, and I do so want him out of the house tomorrow night," she removed her sopping cloak and cap, leaving them to drip on the floor. Sirius gave her sour look and proceeded to dry them with his wand. Lily continued, "He's moping about the Magpies, something to do with their Chaser. If you ask me the Magpies are better off keeping McFarlan. Her dad was captain. It's a dynasty."

"Rubbish. You don't keep a weak player because her father was on the team. Ipswich's taken Clancy McGee off the reserve list. He averaged forty points a game last season. Now that's someone you want in the match."

Lily turned away from the teakettle and pointed her wand at him, like a martinet. "You're just saying that because McFarlan is a woman, and some people think women make poor Chasers in the British League. But I don't. As for McGee, I ask you what exactly did he do to that ref's bullocks to get him on reserve in the first place, hmm? You'd never see McFarlan pull that. Where are your teacups? Sirius, look at this, you've nothing to eat here." He heard cupboards being opened and then shut just as quickly. "You can drop forty Galleons on a Lunascope, but can't have a can of noodle soup lying about? Have you no cups at all?" Sirius waved her off and began to browse through the records. He placed the needle delicately upon his selection.

Sirius stretched out on the floor. Lily took the chair to his left, quietly drinking tea out of a transformed cooking pot. He ran his finger along the grain lines of the wooden boards. They were not unlike the grooves on a 45, those grooves that had so fascinated him. How did they get the sounds between those tiny lines? He turned to Lily suddenly.

"I'm glad you don't slurp your tea. Remus does and it's like fingernails down a blackboard." She glanced at him but didn't answer. After a moment's hesitation, he continued. "He's messy too. Worse than James ever was. One year when we came back from holiday he was empting his trunk on his bed. Everything he'd collected over the summer, he'd kept for study. Lord, you should've seen it. All spread out like some sort of half-arsed jumble sale," Sirius smiled in remembrance.

He reached across to the bookshelf, emptying an old tin into his palm. He showed its contents to her. "Here, see this is part of a Sneakoscope, the twirlywheel that makes it whistle. And that's a flashcube. You use it for a Muggle camera. And this," he held a small trinket proudly between his fingers, "this is a guitar pick. Remus found it for me when I told him I wanted to learn to play the guitar. He- he was always finding things, old wizard junk or Muggle scraps that no one wanted. And he'd just stand there and tell you about it, even if you didn't care."

+++++

Erumpent & Castle. The very name tasted of aristocracy and colonial menageries; the debris of half-dreamt circuses left over from childhood. He'd seen the building once years before, splitting from Diagon Alley by a purple cobblestone walkway. Sloppy red paint lashed onto the brick, wizards littered about the stairs discussing politics and magical theory. He'd circled the location on his Diagon Alley tourist map at home, and dreamed of it often. But he had been a boy then, and the inexperience of youth had charmed the memory, given it glamour beyond its due. The boarding house was now long past its days of infamy, and stood detached from its neighbors like a rotted tooth.

Horace Skump, crouched and smiling, had settled into his usual seat on the crumbling stoop, ready to address any passerby who gave him notice. Though he wore the battered robes of a beggar, clotted with brown stains, Skump's feet were shod in a pair of careworn, well- loved shoes, the wrinkles as tender as the skin circling his watery mouth.

"Here! See this lad," Skump tapped the parchment with his finger. "All the pureblood families who've contributed to the Ministry's so-called defense fund: Black, Malfoy, McNair, all with members in His inner circle." Skump rose to address the jeering crowd, spittle pooling on his chin. "You can't deny this for much longer, good people! His day will come." Remus passed him, taking the steps two at a time.

His was a small room, made even smaller by the intruding noises and smells of his neighbors. Papered upon the western wall was a world map, flaked by the sun. Four pins were placed into it, representing all of his travels: Hogwarts, Fishguard, London and West Germany. Members of the Order had given lectures at Hammerschmidt Castle that summer, delivering reports of Dark activities from around the globe. They spoke of places like the Ivory Coast, which brought to mind a scythe of moon in the African sky, of Greenland and Morocco. Remus had listened from his corner seat, marveling at their detachment. Occasionally they would lapse into dry particulars, the style of dress native to the wizards they met or the state of their accommodations; but these accounts were genial and static.

No one could describe to him Morocco as he imagined it, a twilight bazaar of pale tangerines, propagating juicy, buzzing flies. A land of wild cries and songs, made not by birds, but by human voices. There was beauty in discovery; he did not want to experience these things selfishly and alone. Outside of the random outing with Iphigenia Kurtz, his bunkmate in West Germany, Remus's summer had been a solitary sojourn, reflecting passively upon seven years of hard-won friendships and sodden wool. Even now, there was such an immediacy to life in the city, his first city, that all energy was wasted on mundane tasks and errands. Only in the dark did he think about the day when he'd look in the mirror and realize his age. What would he have to show for it but a life fitted into a room. Determined to not let this fear break him, Remus fought the vision fiercely, and focused on the future.

The future was not a lake, contained like an unplanted seed, but a brook that cut the earth and veined in many directions; a brook where he stood at the mouth and wondered where the currents went.

Terrible dreams he had as well, clashing visions of his friends and former professors. He would be on the wizard quiz show, Which Witch? about to claim his winnings. And there they were, the lot of them, screaming and gesticulating wildly for him to choose the prize behind the curtain. Always they were screaming, at what a fool he'd been and how Sirius would never wait.

It was Dumbledore who had found Remus a position as an archivist in London. The wizard had magnanimously appealed to his innate love of investigation and analysis, professing to Remus the Order's need for a skilled researcher. Only of late did Remus realize the truth of the matter: no one else would take such a bloody boring assignment. When coming across yet another tedious diary, Remus would now exhibit the rueful smile of the cynical and wise. Dumbledore had played him and played him well.

He had first seen Sirius two weeks prior. Remus had watched Sirius, himself unseen, peer into the storefronts along Diagon Alley. Sirius still walked with the same suppleness of movement, an easy roll of muscle unraveling across his shoulders. He only ate pastries from Earley's Bakery, and picked at them with a mind-numbing slowness, absently licking the treacle from his fingers. Remus observed a twitch in the hollow of Sirius's cheek. He wondered how it would feel, the white taste of it under his tongue.

Remus's restraint was all of his strength, the absolute steadfast dream in his eyes. It kept him from making worthwhile mistakes, spending himself instead on anonymous, imagined trysts. Sirius had been the first person he'd ever struck in anger, the first person to nearly take his life away in a breathless rush of stupidity. Yet still Remus would wake from an indistinct sleep, rutting furtively against the bed pillows like a schoolboy.

Remus understood the ache of attraction as experienced in his first sticky fumble with Neil, a Muggle boy he'd met the summer he turned 16. They had chased each other to the edge of the beach, panting, waterlogged. Dappled sun caught on the water in Neil's hair, ran thick off the leaves of the tree where they had stopped. He had watched anxiously over Neil's shoulder, afraid that his friend's sisters would come clamoring over the hill at any moment. But once Neil had cupped his fist, insistent and rough with sand, against his cock, Remus had closed his eyes in relief. The late afternoon heat stuck to his lips, swam under his legs; he came all too quickly. "That's why I like this," Neil had said afterwards. "With a guy, you can never pretend. It's all right here." He'd brought his wet hand to Remus's face and they had both laughed.

He climbed to the deserted top of Erumpent & Castle, green dusk hanging like a gallows. Once a community garden, the roof had since been abandoned by residents and staff alike after the notorious Hags Convention of 1972. Remus liked it here best, the city sounds below drunken and dim.

There was another thing he had discovered in West Germany.

Behind the castle that served as the Order's barracks was a thicket of trees that tangled into a larger forest. The grass was high and mellow, and often Remus would lie there, letting the sweat from the day's exertion dry on his skin. Mundungus Fletcher, a guest of the Order, would sometimes join him after supper. He met Remus there one evening, offering the young man a crinkled brown package.

"I'm doing this with Dumbledore's approval, Lupin. He agrees with me that it'll help. Just don't go run off and tell your mother, `cause she wouldn't like it too much if she knew I was corrupting her boy."

Inside the paper were half a dozen hand-wrapped cigarettes, each pointed at the ends and fatter round the middle.

"Just hold in the smoke when you inhale, count to ten, and blow it out. Should help with the pain and give you a bit more appetite." The old man cuffed Remus hard on the shoulder. "If you should need any assistance," Mundungus grinned, displaying tiny baby teeth, "you know where I'm at."

It was now November, three nights until the moon, and on the evening after next he would have to Apparate from work to his safe house. Remus chose a dry seat against the brick turrets of the rooftop and watched lights pool in the puddles. He took the joint from his shirt pocket and lit it, the bitter flavor heavy and green in his mouth. Sirius was all wrong, all chaos and unfiltered hurt; it roused his compassion, made him hard. To master such a force of nature, feel it submit gracefully and lovingly under his hand. His longings dashed silver and warm over the rocks, ran cold and white in the undertow.

"Bugger pride," he murmured.

+++++

"I know you like these," A white sleeve of paper was flung into his lap. "The sweet ones with walnuts."

Sirius turned to Remus, open-mouthed, smiling. The face beside him was still narrow but not nearly as thin, a sallow taint lingering under the brow. He broke the roll in two, passing the larger piece to his friend. "You've been watching me, haven't you?"

Remus shrugged, contemplating the pastry in his hand. "And you've posted yourself every day for the last two weeks outside my workplace. It's hard not to notice such a ridiculous getup," Remus fingered the sleeve of Sirius's jacket. "Trying to piss off the establishment, going about the Alley sans robe?"

"I'll have you know I purchased this getup from that shop next door to your workplace. They wouldn't sell it if they didn't want wizards to buy it."

"Debatable. So while the rest of us have been working for a living, you've been idling about in unwholesome leisure?"

"Unwholesome leisure? I rather like that. Though," He rested his hand on the recessed hollow of Remus's stomach. "I don't seem to be the only one indulging. Sugar Quills?"

"Beer, actually. Lots of German beer. We discovered this brew house in Wittenberg, wait staff dressed in dragons hide lederhosen. Tankers the size of your head. Temporary heaven."

"But you're back now." The grip curled about Remus's waist. Remus allowed it to hold him a moment longer before pulling away.

"Eat your roll. That was my last Sickle."

+++++

Maha Lakshmi Temple held court on North St., the long, wide avenue where Sirius lived. It rose from the pavement, as polished and smooth as a favorite stone. Narrow evening sun played on the stucco filigree of the temple's roof. It seemed both handcrafted and organic, a testament to the ancient model from which it was replicated, and to the current congregation, which maintained its gleaming facade. Whether it resembled a sugar-dusted cake or a marble urinal, Sirius could never decide.

"It's a funny place. You have to walk around it before you can enter, and there's this odd blue fellow, Vishnu, with too many arms guarding the corridor," He looked to Remus walking beside him. Sirius had kept up a ready and indulgent stream of conversation for nearly twenty blocks. "So how do you find London?"

"Different. Exhausting. Wonderful. I don't know," laughed Remus.

Mrs. Prakash stood upon the walk, sweeping away the crusty slush. Sirius put his finger to his lips.

"They like to spy on me," he whispered, opening the door. He felt an arm gather him close and the expression deepened. Sirius noticed a busted nail on Remus's finger, purple like a violet. He took Remus's hand in his own and tucked it down into his jacket pocket. A nest of skinned robes and jumpers littered the floor, along with bedclothes leftover from that afternoon's pre-Alley lethargy. Off the walls came the scents of the Prakashs' kitchen above them, the ceiling groaning under the oily weight. The record he chose was quiet and tragic. Sirius thought it haunting. Lily thought it ghastly.

"What are you smiling over?" Remus stood behind him, tossing his shirt onto the pile.

"Lily. She hates this record. Says it's only fit for funeral dirges. Woman has no appreciation for romance."

Remus moved to the floor. "Well, look who she married. Peter tells me James had wanted a Wasps-themed wedding."

"Yeah, he had it all planned. He was even going to hire Ludo Bagman to attend the reception." Sirius stripped off his t-shirt. "Charges seventy-five Galleons for personal appearances during the off-season."

"Did he get his way?"

"Not even close," He laid his head on Remus's chest, wrapping a heavy arm across the waist. The slitted twin windows above them were dark with encroaching night. Remus stroked his hair. "You would've liked it anyways Moony. Lots of cake and wine. Lily- Lily's sister, Christ she's a riot. Face straight out of the stables. Big bony arse. I dared Peter to drop his drink down the front of her gown. Owe him five Sickles for it too." He felt the slight laughter tighten Remus's stomach. Sirius brought his hand up to rest upon this slip of skin. He could just reach the nipple with his tip of his thumb, flushed and hard like a cherry stone.

"I'm sorry I wasn't there."

"Me too. But you just have to keep going from one decrepit castle to another," Sirius said, raising his head. "Did you learn much?"

"Plenty."

"Good boy. Care to share?"

"Met a girl."

"Trying to make me jealous?"

Remus laughed again. "God, no. Remember Enid Whitchurch? Well she's got nothing on Iphigenia. Tried to set me up me up with her brother though."

"I hate her already."

Remus gripped Sirius's chin, running the rough patch of his finger across Sirius's lips. It was the same finger Sirius had noticed earlier. He resisted the urge to draw the bruise from the skin, to suck it clean. Remus continued. "You've nothing to be bothered over. I, however, did not like the looks of that landlady of yours."

"Mrs. Prakash?" Sirius whispered with a small smile. "Yeah, she's a bit sweet on me. Thinks I'm a hustler."

"Are you?"

He chuckled. "Not tonight."

White rime cracked the panes, and the wizened knuckles of Mrs. Prakash's ash tree rapped against the window. Sirius had wandered about his tiny kitchen garden that morning, seeing only thinning grass and a flabby black plum. Strong contrasts to wet, blooming mouth near him, something sweet and alive. He tasted it now, against his tongue, a shade softer than blood but warm and ready. When he rose, a thread of spit clung between their lips.

"Sorry," Sirius laughed, wiping back the wetness with the mound of his palm.

"No, s'all right." Remus kept his hand on Sirius's jaw. "I want to. I do, but-"

Sirius groaned. "You're a terrible tease; do you know that? Vishnu's got blue skin, and I've got blue balls, thanks to you," He then plucked the small silvery Lunascope from the sill. "You think I don't remember this stuff? After six years?"

"Oh, well I had nothing to do with Vishnu. Hmm, clever toy. How much did something like that set you back?" Remus rose and stood at the window, returning the device to the ledge. In the distance was the siren of an ambulance. Remus listened then spoke, "Do you ever wonder what it must be like to be on the other end of that? How alone? Knowing that after all the doctors and nurses, after all the wires and shots, you're the last person of importance?"

Sirius shook his head. "No," he answered. "Never."

"I see. It's not -your- family. Not yet."

Remus returned to the floor. He patted Sirius's arm with a sluggish stroke, saying nothing, but studying Sirius curiously for a moment. The heaviness of fatigue seemed to have been swept clean from Remus's brow, and once again his eyes were alert and mercurial, if not a little melancholy. Mercurial and melancholy, Sirius thought, what beautiful words; one evocative of motion, the other of rest- why had it never come to him before? They suited his friend beyond measure. Sirius withdrew the now still hand from his shoulder and turned his back to Remus, letting him sleep.

Above Sirius sounded footsteps, the same rhythmic thumps and groans he listened to every evening. He knew when Mrs. Prakash would rise from her desk and rinse her plate and cup. He knew when the young niece would sneak from her bedroom, the high, nervous laughter of her companions seemingly unnoticed by everyone but him. Tonight, Sirius placed his vigil in the person before him, rather than the occupants above, determined to catch the flirted light in Remus's eyes after he awoke. A portrait hung in the Black family home, some forgotten aunt who watched Sirius smiling, and whispered to him in strange, half- strangled coos before bedtime. Aunt Wathsaia, that had been her name, a great crest of white skin, her ebon hair the sash of dusk. As a boy he'd thought her guardian to sleep. Tonight he would wait her out, become her confidante and apprentice. Her garbled nightingale songs would finally be understood.

There is no cure for instinct. Crusades may rage against it fierce and white, but always they are broken by nature, waves useless against the crags. Inside his subterranean tomb, under flailing candlelight, Sirius gave in to the right and sincere feelings that were welling in his mouth and hand. He traced the indentation line of Remus's spine with his fingertip, all the way to the waist of the trousers, the white size label peeking out above the small of Remus's back. He slid his fingers down to see if he could touch the tag. He could. The skin was tender there, tender and thin and mindlessly hot. His own erection was curling hard against the metal track of his fly; he ignored it. Again and again, he touched that hidden skin, that curve like a bowl to lick from. Fine, downy hairs lit along his hand. Remus huffed gently in his sleep and Sirius withdrew, cupping his fist to his chest. He slipped to the bathroom, trousers already half undone about his hips.


End file.
